Italian Nouns - Articles and Demonstratives

Learn about singular and plural nouns in Italian

Buy Italian Language Tutorial as a PDF e-book! Italian Language Tutorial includes a complete vocabulary and grammar review of the Italian language (much more than what is available online), with realia photos of the Italian language taken in Italy. The PDF e-book and mp3s - including nearly three hours of recordings by three native speakers - are available for immediate download with FREE lifetime updates. Thank you for supporting ielanguages.com! Download the first ten pages of Italian Language Tutorial (including the table of contents).

Italian Nouns: Articles and Demonstratives / Articoli e dimostrativi

All nouns in Italian have a gender (masculine or feminine) and the articles
must agree with the gender. Masculine words generally end in -o and feminine
words generally end in -a. Words that end in -e may be either, so you
will just have to memorize the gender. Keep in mind that articles are
used before nouns or before an adjective + a noun.

Definite Article - The

Masculine

Feminine

il

eel

sing., before consonants

la

lah

sing., before consonants

lo

low

sing., before z, gn, ps, or s + cons.

l'

l

sing., before vowels

l'

l

sing., before vowels

i

ee

plural, before consonants

le

leh

plural, before consonants and vowels

gli

lyee

plural, before vowels, z, gn, or s + cons.

Indefinite Articles - A, an, some

Masculine

Feminine

A, An

un

oon

before consonant or vowel

una

oon-ah

before consonants

uno

oon-oh

before z, gn, ps, or s + consonant

un'

oon

before vowels

Some

dei

day

before consonants

delle

dell-eh

before vowels and consonants

degli

deh-lyee

before vowels, z, gn, or s + cons.

Demonstratives - This, that, these, and those

This and these

This

These

Masc.

questo

questi

before a consonant

quest'

questi

before a vowel

Fem.

questa

queste

before a consonant

quest'

queste

before a vowel

That and those

That

Those

Masc.

quel

quei

before a consonant

quell'

quegli

before a vowel

quello

quegli

before z, gn, or s + consonant

Fem.

quella

quelle

before a consonant

quell'

quelle

before a vowel

If you use that and those as a subject, use these four forms: quello for masculine singular, quella for feminine singular, quelli for masculine plural,
and quelle for feminine plural.

Plural Nouns

If a word is masculine singular, change the last letter to an i.
If a word is feminine singular, change the last letter to an e if it ends in a, or if it ends in e, change it to an i.

Singular to Plural Nouns

Masculine

-o

-i

-a

-i

-e

-i

Feminine

-a

-e

-e

-i

Words ending in -io can
either change the o to i, or just simply drop the o to form the plural.
When the -i of -io is stressed,
the plural is -ii; however, most words ending in -io
do not stress the -i, and so their plurals are formed by dropping the
o. Compare: lo zio - gli zii and il
figlio - i figli.

Some
nouns ending in -co and -go may or may not insert an h before
changing the o to i. There is no general rule for it. All nouns ending in -ca and -ga insert an h before changing the a to e.
Nouns ending in an accented vowel do not change for the plural.
(la città (city) becomes le città)
There are some masculine nouns that end -a, and these nouns change
the -a to -i in the plural: il programma, il poeta, il pianete, il
pilota, il poema, il sistema. The plural of l'uomo (man)
is gli uomini, while the plural of la mano (hand) is le
mani.